VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 2  SUMMER SOLSTICE 1999

JONATHAN OTT SPEAKS… PART TWO Interviewed by Will Beifuss and Jon Hanna at the 1998 BPC Conference

Jon: Living in México, what do you think that the interest in at home and make tea.” But if I do that in the U.S. I know for is there, given in a sort of comparative percent- a fact that there are going to be at least a dozen people there age? that have done it more than I have, and perhaps can teach me a thing or two if I can just connect with them afterwards Jonathan: Of course we have, at best, only soft figures in any and share information. And so the U.S. is a real leader there, case. But I would say that it’s less than it is in the U.S., in and I would say in México it’s a great deal less. But on the terms of the kind of interest that we know about—basement other hand, there’s this schizophrenic thing; on the one hand shaman. In the U.S. there’s a great deal of sophistication in there’s racism against Indians and there’s this whole socio- the so-called amateur sector. And that doesn’t exist any- economic one-upmanship, but on the other hand, all of where else, not even in Europe. In Europe, the only people México’s glory lies in the pre-Colombian past, and it’s been that are at that level of sophistication are in the business as all downhill—and very steeply—politically and economi- shamanic-plant dealers, and they’re very few. But in the U.S. cally since then. And so people also have this, in a way, exag- we’re talking hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even gerated, mythologized appreciation for the pre-Colombian millions, that are very sophisticated. They not only know culture, while at the same time they’re discriminating against about analogues, they’ve been making them for their dark-skinned Indian gardener. years, and have probably innovated themselves in this field and have a great deal of knowledge. If I lecture on this topic— What is true about México that’s not so true about the U.S. and I don’t lecture on this topic in Latin America in general, is you would be surprised at the “straight” people that have and certainly not in México, because I try to keep a low pro- in fact tried mushrooms, or peyote, or something. Because file there—but if I lecture on this topic in Spain or in there there’s no stigma whatever attached to mushrooms, Amsterdam, and mention ayahuasca analogues, it kind of peyote… Salvia divinorum they don’t really know about, but blows people’s mind, like “Oh wow, now you can even do it basically mushrooms and peyote are the big two. But mari-

“…the War on Drugs is lost and won. They lost, we “What’s the difference between the ethnomedicine “…another scheme that I cooked up for frustrating won. They haven’t conceded defeat yet, nor will they of the ladakhis, and the ethnomedicine of the Sac- the powers that be in the War on Drugs is making do that perhaps for ten years, maybe twenty years.” ramento suburban residents? I mean, scientifically toxic honeys as a means of selling drugs surrepti- speaking, they’re both valid subjects of study.” tiously.”

62  THE REVIEW, PMB 808, 564 MISSION STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 2  SUMMER SOLSTICE 1999 juana and LSD are just completely different topics for them. Pharmacotheon and Ayahuasca Analogues… well, for example, And that’s gringo, jípi (hippie), “evil drug,” and the rest. And just with the mushrooms; GARTZ and ALLEN have published then peyote and mushrooms are, “Ah, our glorious indig- one table where they have 158 species of what they call sci- enous tradition.” So I will often ask, especially older people, entifically-proven psilocybian mushrooms. But as I point out when the topic comes up and they ask me what I do, I will in a footnote to my table, I’ve only identified 100. Because I just ask them, “Well, have you ever tried this?” And it’s sur- look for an actual report in the scientific literature. And then prising. You know, doctors and lawyers will say, “Oh yeah, I list others that are in their table, but there is no chemical fifteen or twenty years ago, my wife got sick and so we went evidence for it; they’re just saying, “Okay, this blues, it’s a to Huautla to look for MARÍA SABINA.” And this sort of thing. Psilocybe.” And I agree with them, it belongs on a table like Because this is a living thing in México, and even city people that, but it’s just a question of what your ground-rules are have a place for it. Even doctors who are making their money for the table. And so mine has only 100, and then I list in the as the competition. And so it’s bigger than people would footnotes about another 60 or so probable psilocybian mush- think, but marijuana is a great deal less used in México and rooms. But to me that’s an important distinction. And it may all of Latin America than it is in the U.S. And LSD and so well turn out that some of these aren’t —maybe forth is almost non-existent. I don’t know what the statistics one of them is only baeocystin, or something like that. And are. indeed, that’s an open book, that chemistry. Though prob- ably you don’t just have baeocystin and nor-baeocystin, but The U.S., in that government survey, I think they estimated also the non-methylated tryptamine equivalents of both have something like two million users of visionary drugs like LSD, been found in a couple of species, and we’re probably deal- and it has been said that 20 million people from the U.S. have ing with at least six potentially-active compounds. And GARTZ admitted to having tried acid, or mescaline/peyote, mush- has described this aeruginacine, which turns greenish, from rooms, ayahuasca—one of these at least once in their lives. Inocybe aeruginascens, and that’s probably some non-phos- But they’re talking about only maybe a tenth of that many of phate ester of psilocin, some kind of other compound. regular users. I would say the number’s gotta be higher. That it’s at least double that and could even be as high as 10 mil- Jon: But none of these have been found in mushrooms that lion, one in 25 that are more-or-less active, current users. But don’t also contain psilocin? I’m sure that we have at least 5 million, 1 in 50, because there are about 250 or 260 millions in the U.S. I would say that Jonathan: Not so far, no. Without psilocybin and/or psilo- we’re looking at at least 2%, maybe 4% users. And I think in cin. Europe the percentage is probably higher. That there are in fact probably more users actively in Europe, maybe as many Jon: That’s the mushroom that somebody reading this needs as 10 to 20 million, if here we’re talking 5–10 million, maybe to find now, for us in California at least. 10–20 million in Europe. So potentially the market in Europe is actually bigger for these things, but it isn’t in the Jonathan: Exactly… APPLESEED and TROUT have done really sense that they’re just used to buying pills in the disco, and good work. But I don’t cite those in these kind of tables be- there’s not this “can do” go-down-in-the-basement attitude. cause they’re not published in the open literature where you They don’t have a garden anyway, I mean they don’t have can access them with a literature search. You have to have any land, most of them live in apartments. the book. I’m more concerned with what is openly available, accessible to everyone, and is in a refereed journal. And they Jon: Regarding your comment about only including the often couch their analysis, which are done with the con- analysis data from published references in the second edi- straints of not necessarily having access to the best standards tion of Ayahuasca Analogues. I’ve recently been made aware and equipment and reagents. But I definitely cite their work. of rye grasses tested by JOHNNY APPLESEED that appear as TROUT especially has done extremely valuable work, which is though they may have a fairly high tryptamine content. Is as detailed as anyone could wish as far as really backing it there anything you know of in the literature that has reported up. And he’s as careful as can be about not going beyond the this from rye grass? evidence. He’s a very good example of what I was talking about before, of not jumping to conclusions, and really stat- Jonathan: No. I don’t even know what genus that is. But once ing your grounds for equivocation also, when you’re bring- again I want to make this point really clear. In my tables, in ing up evidence. But this kind of work indicates that just go-

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ing down into the basement with a little TLC rig, anybody evitable because of economics, purely and simply. It’s money can turn up new tryptamine plants and go to the races. And that rules our world. And even though this so-called ‘war,’ now its the private sector, the non-scientific, non-academi- like any other, favors certain evil enterprises that have prof- cians that are really leading the way in this field. ited from it, and there’s this prison-industrial complex and so forth, there are even bigger enterprises that could stand to Jon: So tell us a little bit more about ideas for future prod- profit more from things not being this way. And eventually ucts, other than the Pharmahuasca®. they will win out. And so what I see it as being is this gives us about a ten-year window-of-opportunity in which the situa- Jonathan: Oh, from PHARMACOPHILIA… well, I basically see tion is in limbo. The natural, logical players in this “new” PHARMACOPHILIA as doing what I call “psychopharmacologi- industry—it’s really the oldest industry in the world—the cal engineering” in my book Pharmacophilia. And I think that tobacco companies, the booze companies, the pharmaceuti- this is going to be the biggest “new industry” that the world cal industry, presently have their hands tied. In the case of has ever seen, and that in fact the War on Drugs is lost and the tobacco companies, with this absurd idea that tobacco is won. They lost, we won. They haven’t conceded defeat yet, not a drug, it’s not about nicotine, there’s no addiction in- nor will they do that perhaps for ten years, maybe twenty volved, etc. So naturally they can’t come out with a better years. [The longer it takes, the more likely will it be that we form, a more euphoric substitute for smoking tobacco. The see the losing Field Marshals in the dock in war-crimes tri- pharmaceutical companies are stuck similarly with a thera- bunals, just like their Nazi prototypes; concerted demands peutic model. And okay, so they can crank out a nicotine- for repavations, perhaps other vengeant virulence. It seemed product, but it costs $50.00 for 100 mgs of Nicotrol® that like a stroke of evil, political genius to paint this scapegoating you shoot up your nose with a little pump-sprayer, or nico- crusade as a ‘war,’ but we’ll see what happens when the vic- tine gum, or whatever, and so that’s also a failed model. Be- torious troops are at the door of their bunker. Will some cause we’re not talking about therapy—getting people off of miserable coward of a President shoot him- or herself, some these substances—we’re talking about giving them a more despicable weakling poison his or her own children before healthful alternative, which is nothing new, it’s exactly what doing the same? I have extensive correspondence with HUXLEY proposed in the 1930s, when he said, “If I were a mil- pharmacopolitical prisoners, or ‘prisoners of war in America’ lionaire I should endow a band of research workers to look (sic) as they call themselves, and these crusaders—the scum for the ideal intoxicant.” Well that’s basically the name of of the Earth, really—have ruined literally millions of lives, the game. And so I see it as being general psychopharmaco- made millions of enemies… very angry enemies. I would hope logical engineering. We have a ten-year window-of-opportu- that we could be charitable in victory, finally break with this nity, in which small, bold, creative private enterprises can awful stain on history, our relentless vindictiveness, but it’s step in and work within a context of stretching the limits of the very bizarre legal situation we have …the War on Drugs is lost and won. They lost, we right now, which nonetheless gives us enough latitude to get our foot in the won. They haven’t conceded defeat yet, nor will door and start working on this. The real big prizes of course are not vision- they do that perhaps for ten years, maybe twenty drugs, but tobacco-substitutes, more years. euphoric forms of nicotine or its ana- logues, that are more healthful, stimu- easy for me to say that—I’m not a ‘lifer’ in the gulag, at least lants in general—especially amphetamine/cocaine-type not yet. In fact, in one of the cruel ironies of war, I am an stimulants—and alcohol. If someone could come up with unintended beneficiary of the war, which has handed me something that were a more-or-less serviceable substitute for golden opportunities, as it might be, on a gleaming, crystal- alcohol, but didn’t require multi-gram doses at a time that line-line-festooned silver platter!] It all depends on where and the liver has to process… this would make MICROSOFT look when. But there’s no doubt in my mind that Washington and like a Mom & Pop grocery store! Langley are the Berlin and Tokyo of this War. And maybe somebody will resurrect and raise the Titanic, and they can Jon: Or perhaps put the cure with the poison? Fortified then sign the surrender on the deck of the Titanic instead of alcohols containing milk-thistle extract and antioxidants… on the deck of the Missouri. But that this will happen is in-

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Jonathan: Or just simply figure out the psychopharmacol- Jon: On the topic of smart-drugs, in the [last] issue of ER ogy of alcohol, which, amazingly enough, hasn’t been done. K. TROUT mentioned a couple of bioassays with Piracetam We just have aging theories about general anesthetics and and mescaline, and had noted a strong “potentiation.” I’m their solubility in membranes. But now we come to find out curious if you have any ideas on the pharmacology of that? there are specific receptor effects, and slowly but surely the picture is becoming What’s the difference between the ethnomedicine a little clearer. But basically we’re at the same stage with alcohol as we are with of the ladakhis, and the ethnomedicine of the Sac- bufotenine. We just don’t know fuck-all about its ludible pharmacology, its ramento suburban residents? I mean, scientifically pharmacohedonology. And so those are speaking, they’re both valid subjects of study. And the big prizes here. And my goal is to lay the base, working within the bounds of the in fact, now we have this very thriving, active home- vision-drugs, because that’s… something like pharmahuasca will generate enough experimentalist scene, of which The Entheogen income to finance some R & D more spe- Review is really one of the strongest elucidators, cifically into things that are going to be more expensive and difficult to do. And because that’s where some few of these people so then we just start working within the bounds; we will introduce a line of what I come forward and talk about what they might call “smart-snuffs,” and probably the first have done. And this is a tremendously valuable one will be based on arecoline, which is the active stimulant-alkaloid in betel, source of ethnobotanical information, and likewise which is one of the most widely used of specific pharmacological information. stimulants in the world, right up there with caffeine in terms of number of users, which number in the billions. But it also happens to be a Jonathan: Uh, huh... interesting. I’d have to think about that. prototype smart-drug that raises the choline levels in the Nothing springs to mind exactly. But yeah, this is just an open brain, and acetylcholine is thought to be the primary trans- ballpark. And obviously these kinds of things are very valu- mitter in the major memory circuits in the brain and is very able, because who among the drugabuseologists is ever go- important in memory storage. And most of the so-called ing to connect the two? Or suddenly come up with some ab- smart-drugs are cholinergics that somehow effect the acetyl- surd animal-tests? Anything that will be useful in this field? choline system. And conversely anti-cholinergics like scopo- And suddenly we have people willing to try any and anything lamine and atropine have the reverse effect—they inhibit in combination. And we need to be very careful with this. memory acquisition. So I would call them “smart-snuffs,” But in fact, I’ve long been advocating study of drug-scene eth- and by the way nicotine is also a smart-drug, and also shows nobotany—and this was laughed out of the hall at one time. this kind of effect, as do stimulants in general—they’re well- When I first started in my career out of school, in 1975, the known to enhance learning. Not just alertness and keeping “hippie drug scene,” or just the illicit-drug-scene per se, not one awake to study all night or whatever, but they actually necessarily hippie, was not considered to be a fruitful subject enhance recording this kind of information. What they have of study for ethnobotanists or for pharmacologists. But why been found to do in more recent studies with PET scans and not? I mean, we’re people also. What’s the difference between the like, is that they stimulate the brain in a task-specific way. the ethnomedicine of the ladakhis, and the ethnomedicine It’s not a general overall cerebral stimulation. The area of the of the Sacramento suburban residents? I mean, scientifically brain that you use for a certain cognitive task is specifically speaking, they’re both valid subjects of study. And in fact, stimulated by these drugs, and other areas are left quiescent. now we have this very thriving, active home-experimentalist And so it is in fact something that’s boosting the signal-to- scene, of which The Entheogen Review is really one of the stron- noise ratio, so to speak, in certain circuits of the brain. gest elucidators, because that’s where some few of these Potentially a very useful thing. people come forward and talk about what they might have done. And this is a tremendously valuable source of ethno-

THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEW, PMB 808, 564 MISSION STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105  65 VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 2  SUMMER SOLSTICE 1999 botanical information, and likewise of specific pharmacologi- so I want to start a legal coca business in South America. Pres- cal information. Because we have access to a whole smorgas- ently the legal market is basically restricted to Perú, Bolivia, bord of substances and a full phamacopoeia of psychoactive and Northern Argentina, and only in Northern Argentina is drugs, and so where else is it going to occur to someone to there enough economic well-being to make money off this. take something like Piracetam and combine it with some- In Perú and Bolivia it’s legal, but nobody can afford to buy thing like mescaline, which is very hard to get? No, I wasn’t any good stuff, while cocaine is dirt cheap—about $5.00/ aware of that. gram. And so you revive really good, legal coca products. I had thought of making two. One would be what they call a Anyway, to go back to the whole PHARMACOPHILIA thing, the diksap in Holland, which means just thick syrup; sap or juice. next product will be smart-snuffs, and I’m working on an Yeah, sap is really juice… thick juice. And so they just mix it arecoline-based stimulant, and also a nicotine-based stimu- with mineral water, and they always have it on hand with lant, and perhaps combinations of the two. Then there will soft drinks, and beer or whatever, they always have beverage later be visionary snuffs. And other types of pharmahuasca— syrups. And so you make a similar product out of coca, but like maybe an herbal pharmahuasca product. You could have one that has all the alkaloids and all the flavoring and nutri- a whole variety of them. You could have a basic ayahuasca tional elements natural to the leaf—you don’t discard any- and Peganum harmala extract for the MAOI side. You could thing of worth. Just basically eliminate the fiber and concen- have a… and in some countries… in the U.S. this would be trate it down. Then people would be able to make their own legally problematical, but in Holland it’s presently not prob- Vin Mariani or their own real Coca-Cola®, just by adding this lematical… you could make a jurema-extract pill… nor in Ja- at home. Or taking it by itself, or adding it to other foods. pan, where pure compounds are more of a problem. Those And also this could be rendered as a fairly large lozenge— would also be products. But I see the real big prize for the imitating an acullico or coca quid, but smaller, and having near term as being coca/cocaine. Because stimulants are ob- the equivalent amount that’s in a coca quid in a lozenge. That viously big business. During what ANTONIO ESCOHOTADO calls could also be compounded with other things—flavorings like “The Pharmacratic Peace,” basically cocaine was controlled, ginger, like cardamom. But also could be combined with the opiates were controlled, but the pharmaceutical succeda- immune-stimulants and other nutrients… vitamin C, and so nea or substitutes for these were more or less easily acces- forth. You make these products, you do the test-marketing sible, and this stopped in the 1960s. And he defined that as and R & D on a modest scale making modest profits, in South “The Pharmacratic Peace.” During that time, it’s estimated America where this is legal. And in Bolivia the government that in the last year of legal availability, more or less in the will even give you incentives for investing in this kind of in- medical field, of amphetamines, the U.S. industry manufac- dustry, because they desperately want to foment the legal tured some 9 billion dose-units of amphetamines, and it was market for coca. Because even in their legal economy it’s 20% a major part of the pharmaceutical business. And so one of of their economy. And then they have an illegal economy the geopolitical problems with legalization or the eventual that’s at least as big as the legal one. So you’re really talking derogation of these drug-laws is the fact that there are sig- about something like 60% of their overall economy is in this nificant benefits for some people of the prohibition. And one product. And so I wish to do this, and my modus oper- there are many countries that benefit from this, like Colum- andi… you have to be really culturally-sensitive, and I wish bia, like México, like Bolivia and Perú. Bolivia and Perú are to be at best a minority partner with foreign nationals in any good examples. They’re desperately-poor countries. México’s of these businesses, so I would have partners from Bolivia a great deal richer than they are, and so is Brasil. And in Bo- and Argentina in this. And as in my Dutch company I’m a livia the illegal coca-based economy is at least as big as the 40% owner with two Dutch partners, and my Spanish com- whole legal economy of the country. So we’re talking about pany I’m a 33% owner with two Spanish partners. And so half of their livelihood coming from this. And if these things then you do the R & D, you make the effective product, and were made legal… as we know, when amphetamines have then you work on expanding the market. And the way I see it widely been available, cocaine has been just very niche-mar- of introducing it into the European community first, and sub- ket, a very small player in the stimulant field. And so the way sequently into the U.S., is that you start through companies that I see to answer this, owing to the great and deserved that are engaged in addiction therapy like HEALING VISIONS importance of natural products, ethnomedicine, and herbal with DEBORAH MASH, like TAKIWASI in Perú, and you set up an extracts as opposed to purified compounds and the phar- R & D program, you give them free samples, and go into col- maceutical industry… you just exploit the same thing. And laborative research. And you propose it as a substitution-

66  THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEW, PMB 808, 564 MISSION STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 2  SUMMER SOLSTICE 1999 therapy analogous to methadone with opiate use for pasta- Jon: So the agnostic position then. base smokers, for crystal-sniffers, cocaine users, and so forth. And that’s how you get your foot in the door in Europe. And Jonthan: I guess you could call it that. But I have never seen then you work on expanding it from there. any evidence with my own eyes or senses of the existence of plant-spirits or deities. But I can’t either say that they don’t Already in Amsterdam you can buy coca tea-bags; they’re al- exist, based on my lack of having been able to perceive it that lowing that. And so the door’s already slightly open. And way. I don’t. again, Bolivia… at the Sevilla World’s Fair, the Bolivian pavil- ion was a coca promotion mission, basically. They gave out Jon: And you’ve had no contact with… so many people re- free samples, and they were just trying to set up cooperative port an entity contact, or some thing that in their vision looks ventures and make these legal products. But the problem is a person… that the ones that they had come up with were de-cocain- ized, because they’re too overly-sensitive to this. Coca with- Jonathan: Never, not even remotely. Nothing more than like out cocaine is like coffee without caffeine, or chocolate with- SCHULTES has described, “squiggly lines,” and patterns and out anandamide and theobromine. To me it’s kind of a silly the like. I’ve never seen any kind of a vision. Nor do I have way to go about it. And furthermore, as many of these go, especially vivid dreams very often. I’m more like HUXLEY— they don’t even taste good or look good, so why bother? like the way HUXLEY described it, not such a strong visual They’re just kind of ruining something that’s intrinsically imagination. very good. So you have to come up with something that re- ally works. And it will work even better than a coca quid, and Jon: Coming from that perspective then… when you take somewhat less-well than sniffing 150 mg line of pure coke or these substances, is the word entheogen only being used in an banging it or smoking free-base. I think it’s a very feasible ethnographic context, and for yourself, these substances thing, and that over a five- or ten-year period that this also aren’t entheogens? be worked into the equation. And then that would generate the kind of funds that we will need to go after alcohol, which Jonathan: Well no… uh, I define… yeah, well it’s… this might is going to be a major R & D thing. But that’s what I want to well just sound probably like I’m just rationalizing or some- do, is make this into a big business, and set up a big R & D thing sophistical, but no. I think that the universe is our cre- operation, and become the MICROSOFT of the psychocosmos. ator. And to me the divine is the universe itself. And specifi- cally it’s manifestation as energy, as opposed to matter or as a Jon: Changing the subject back to the topic of plant-spirits. more tangible, palpable thing. And so far as I can tell, nei- Somebody told me once, a quote from you, which essentially ther science nor any religion can explain the origin of the said, “Spirits are for pea-brains.” (WILL laughs) universe. If you talk about it—and SASHA did a good job of satirizing this—the “big bang,” and so forth. The universe Jonathan: No, I never said that. I would never say that. I would was created in this big bang, and is so old. Okay, but if there’s use the word pea-brain, but not often in public… but not that no universe and no temporal era, when did that happen, way. (laughs) where did it happen, and where did it come from? So you’re still postulating the universe, basically. And if they say, “Okay, Jon: Well, I don’t know that it was in public… this or that deity created it,” or that life actually came in in- terstellar dust, you’re still just pushing away and farther back. Jonathan: No, that was a very loose paraphrase of something But where did that start? Where was this deity standing if that I might have said, but I certainly never said that, that there was no universe? Where did she come from? Out of spirits are for pea-brains. what was this created? And so I just think that it’s something that we can’t know. It’s unknowable. I haven’t experienced it Jon: How would you define, personally, your belief in God? as plant-spirits, and so I can’t vouch for that particular way of seeing it. But I would never say that it’s for pinheads or Jonathan: I don’t really have one. I mean, that’s basically it. pea-brains or whatever, or negate someone else’s perception But the other side of the coin is I don’t have any disbelief of it. I have to admit that that is possible. And it’s certainly where that’s concerned either. I just don’t know and I don’t plausible. And so I try not to believe in anything, but the really care. other side of that coin is not to disbelieve in anything either.

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And I try to just enjoy and live with the uncertainty of not Will: You’ve left a pretty good written legacy though, so knowing. I just think there are things that we can not know. maybe you’ve already satisfied that innate urge to kind of The whole business of religion—and science has gone into make one’s mark and leave something beyond our imperma- that same business, and now everybody and his brother is nence behind. exploiting the breach that science has more or less vacated Jonathan: Perhaps.

And another scheme that I cooked up for frustrat- Jon: Anything new and interesting that ing the powers that be in the War on Drugs is mak- you’ve been working on lately? ing toxic honeys as a means of selling drugs sur- Jonathan: I did publish a paper in Eco- nomic Botany on psychoactive honeys reptitiously. Naturally toxic honeys, where the bees and toxic honeys as a mechanism of sequester the secondary compounds in the plants. drug-discovery in the preliterate world. And another scheme that I cooked up for frustrating the powers that be in the by not doing such a good job of it—is offering certainty to War on Drugs is making toxic honeys as a means of selling people, when basically the universe gives us questions not drugs surreptitiously. Naturally toxic honeys, where the bees answers. People don’t want to live in uncertainty. RICHARD sequester the secondary compounds in the plants. We al- FEYNMAN said it really well. He said, “I can live with doubt ready know of a few different categories of psychoactive hon- and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more eys that occur naturally, and we could make a few more. So interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which that would be sort of a cool fun business for somebody. It might be wrong…I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel would also simply involve connecting the drug-plant grow- frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysteri- ers with people that rent out hives for orchard owners. You ous universe without a purpose, which is the way it really is wouldn’t even need to do your own apiculture. You could as far as I can tell.” just make the right connections in the right place, and buy the special honey. But that’s one that I’m less likely to have Will: Yeah, I think that is one of the biggest failings of people, time to do, so hopefully somebody else will do it. is that they are very uncomfortable with the level of uncer- tainty in this world, and they will do anything to minimize Will: What’s the most promising crop for that? that, and box themselves in. Jonathan: Well, morning glories, for example; the Mayan Jonathan: Yeah, they want continuity. And the universe gives morning-glory honey. Possibly tobacco. Certainly the us constant change, and there’s nothing solid, and nothing Solanaceaes give toxic honeys, and the Ericaeae. really continuous about it. People want to think their genes are going to be perpetuated, their character is going to “life Will: You’ve gotta have a really big mono-crop of that though, after death” or whatever they call it. And personally that just don’t ya? doesn’t interest me in the slightest. There are a million-and-one objects of inquiry that are of interest to me right now, and Jonathan: But such things exist. And the stingless-bee hon- whether my identity, consciousness, or some semblance of eys… well, you know you can buy clover honey, or alfalfa it is going to continue after my heart stops beating and my honey… and yeah. Such things exist on big herb farms. The brain waves start propagating… I’ll find that out, or I won’t, stingless-bees from the Mayan morning-glory honey are dis- one day or another without doing anything. And so it’s just criminate—they graze one floral source at a time, so you just a matter of being patient and waiting. And now I have a lot need to control where the honey’s going from that particu- more things that I can know. Why is it so interesting? I don’t lar flower. Mine all died off. I have to start up again. Actually care, I really don’t care. I wasn’t living in México when I started that up, and then the iguanas ate all the morning glories, and my friend spaced it out, and you know, nothing happened.

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Will: Everything went to hell while you were gone, yeah… Will: Is it sold as a powder? When you say a quarter gram… surprise. Jonathan: Well, I just bought 50 grams of it from SIGMA. It’s Jonathan: Right. The iguanas ate the morning glories. Well, not on the Usan pharmaceutical market anymore, because I don’t have any iguanas where I live. Nothing eats the morn- they have more profitable things. It’s cheap, it’s non-toxic, ing glories. it’s been approved in many countries. There’s a good track- record for its use in human beings. It’s not some experimen- Jon: Hey JONATHAN, you had mentioned in Pharmacophilia that tal thing. some kind of a stomach medication—proglumide—could be used with opiates. Have you tried that? Jon: You can get it in other countries though, right?

Jonathan: Oh yeah. The dosage is about a quarter of a gram. Jonathan: Well, it’s not available in Spain or México. Every Proglumide used to be used as an ulcer medication, but now country I go to I check to see if they have it. I don’t know how they have more profitable ones. to find that out. But I know the trade names for it—in the Merck Index you can look that up. And SIGMA sells it—it’s very Jon: I’ve also heard that you can use Tagamet® to do the same cheap, 50 grams is about $90.00. And so that would be some- thing. Do you know if that’s true? thing… I hadn’t really thought about this but that just re- minds me, that’s something that we should make for Jonathan: Is that a CCK inhibitor? PHARMACOPHILIA. Make dose-forms of that.

Jon: I don’t know. Jon: Yeah.

Jonathan: I don’t think so. No, I think that inhibits the secre- Will: Absolutely. Does it in any way effect the quality of the tion of hydrochloric acid in your stomach. No that wouldn’t analgesic effect? work. CCK is a gut hormone—cholecystokinin—that is re- ally involved apparently in ulcers. And so they had CCK in- Jonathan: I took it first by itself, and didn’t really notice any hibitors at one time that were ulcer medications. Proglumide effect. I didn’t know what the dose was at first, and so I started is one of those. But CCK in the brain is the endogenous opi- working up. Then I got this book called Orphan Drugs that ate antagonist. It’s like naltrexone and naloxone. It’s what just happened to have it in there, but they don’t say what dampens the endorphin circuits—the endopioid circuits. countries still sell it. But they list it as an orphan drug. And so it was found that inhibiting this CCK is like enhanc- ing the effects of opiates. And not only does it make the opi- Jon: Does it say who manufactures it though? I mean, ates more effective, but it also can reverse opiate tolerance couldn’t you write to the manufacturer and find out where? or prevent it from being developed in the first place. Will: Really!? To the point dosage does …not only does it make the opiates more effective, not have to go up at all? but it also can reverse opiate tolerance or prevent Jonathan: Exactly. it from being developed in the first place. Jon: Do you need to lower your dosage? Jonathan: Yeah. It’s possible. I can find out. And I will. But it Jonathan: You can, yes. may be that the patents have expired also, and that’s another reason why it’s not being marketed. And the dose is kind of Jon: But would it be dangerous not to? high. And now they’re going for more specific things like in- hibiting hydrochloric acid secretion or whatever, and maybe Jonathan: Well, you’d get an enhanced effect, definitely. I CCK inhibition isn’t a valuable treatment anymore for ulcer. wouldn’t think it would be dangerous. But if you have toler- But there are other CCK inhibitors that are known. But this ance, you can actually work your dose down by using this. is the cheapest, most readily available one.

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In fact you can stop the development of tolerance to drugs— problems with cocaine, because she’ll take more and more it’s not something that inevitably goes with drug-adminis- and more, with more side-effects, and so forth. You can still tration. This can be done with Valium®—this would be an- get the effect, as long as you take enough to overwhelm the other target of research for PHARMACOPHILIA eventually, when antibodies. And of course it won’t effect speed. So you could there’s enough money to support this kind of thing—anti- also take speed instead of coke. tolerance therapy. Because stupidly, like everything else, the government in the United States and the drugabuseologists, Will: Right, oh man… automatically go in the wrong direction. They try to make drugs weaker, not stronger. They try to enhance tolerance, not Jonathan: Yeah, it’s a nightmare. And pharmacogenetically, inhibit tolerance. And so what’s happening with the current the higher your innate tolerance is to something, the more that situation is they’re making what they call the “cocaine vac- correlates with possibilities of having “problems” with that cine.” And this is the Holy Grail of NIDA, to come out with a drug, because by your very nature you have to take bigger “cocaine vaccine.” And what this is, is monoclonal murine and bigger doses to overcome that innate lack of sensitivity. antibodies. This is really Machiavellian and bizarre. They It’s kind of counter-intuitive, but the less sensitive one is to a make what are called hybridomas. You fuse a myeloma cell, given type of substance, the more likely one is to have a prob- which is an immune-system tumor cell, with a specific anti- lem relationship with that. Because by nature, in order to body-producing cell that you’ve already selected. To do this get the effect, you have to take bigger doses than a person you make a hapten, which is a synthetic antigen. Cocaine is who would be more sensitive. Instead of working to over- too small to activate the immune system—you need a much come tolerance, which is possible… Or they say, “Oh, no, we bigger molecule to activate the immune system. So they bind can’t give opiates to this cancer patient who’s screaming in not cocaine, but an analogue of it that’s like the transition agony, because he might become addicted.” Which is a lie stage between cocaine and its metabolite, which is ecgonine. anyway. Because people that are taking opiates for extreme So they made a transition-state molecule bound to a protein pain do not generally become addicted to them—that’s just that would activate the immune system, then they injected a medical lie. this into mice so that they would make antibodies to this protein. Then they selected out the cells that made that spe- Will: Oh, is that right? cific antibody recognizing the cocaine-analogue portion of the hapten, fused them with a myeloma cell to make an im- Jonathan: Yeah, because if anything, they tend to associate mortal cell-line that you can grow in culture and will secrete that… Well, let me qualify that. I would say people that like these antibodies. Then they inject the antibodies… I don’t opiates are, at the most, 20% of the general population. Stud- think this has yet been tried with human beings… but even- ies that have been done with naive subjects, where you inject tually into the hapless parolee, job-seeker, immigrant or them with heroin, the great majority of them have real dys- whomever, and then it enhances their innate tolerance to co- phoric effects and never wish to repeat the experience. The caine. And so what happens is you have antibodies circulat- ones that have the taste for opiates, say the one-in-ten or one- ing that chop-up the cocaine in your bloodstream. And so in in-twenty, if they’ve for some reason never tried them before, order to get the effect from cocaine, you have to take five times and only in the context of a car accident or something, tried more, or something like that. And you have to have the anti- it for the first time, then yes. Those people could possibly bodies injected every month or so, because it’s not a vaccine. become habituated. But the great majority of people don’t It doesn’t stimulate any native immunity. It’s like taking a γ- have that taste, they get more dysphoria than euphoria, and globulin shot. And so it’s just an antibody shot. And of course those people tend to associate the opiates with the other dis- they call it the “cocaine vaccine,” and when I describe this in comfort, loss of dignity, etc., of being in the hospital, so if a footnote in Pharmacophilia, I quote THOMAS SZASZ as saying anything they’re conditioned against it, not for it. And so in Ceremonial Chemistry in the mid-seventies, “A drug com- that’s a lie. But they use this, and instead of exploring these pulsorily administered to addicts is no longer like a vaccine; technologies, which have been known for some decades, to it is a vaccine.” And now they’re calling this a vaccine. They’re prevent the development of tolerance, they’re now working not saying it’s like a vaccine, it is, it’s the “cocaine vaccine.” on ways to enhance tolerance. And there’s also a so-called So people can march down their teenaged daughter and force “heroin vaccine” that they’re working on as well. So yeah. her to take this shot, so that she won’t become a cocaine ad- They’ve been saying that black is white and white is black for dict! But in fact, it’s going to make her more likely to have so long that now they start to believe it themselves. So they

70  THE ENTHEOGEN REVIEW, PMB 808, 564 MISSION STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 2  SUMMER SOLSTICE 1999 just immediately march into the A-bomb zone, or step off nor can they demethylate codeine to morphine because co- the bridge, in everything they do. They’re always just going deine is a prodrug as is heroin, and morphine is the actual the wrong way, doing the wrong thing. analgesic agent. So about 10% of Caucasian North Ameri- cans don’t have that enzyme and get no analgesia at all from Will: One last question on the proglumide, does it also codeine or from hydrocodone, because that’s transformed extend the duration of the effects of opiates? to hydromorphone by the same mechanism. And it affects the metabolism of about 20 different drugs, it’s called the Jonathan: I’m not really sure about that, but I’ve tried it with debrisoquine anomaly, because that’s one of the more com- morphine and codeine both, and I’m satisfied that… well I mon medicines that it affects. And so, that’s one of my ex- recently kicked, just to experiment… now I’m trying to find amples in Pharmacophilia pharmacogenetics, because in out how addictive are opiates because I’ve used them every North America—10% of the people—it’s a very significant day pretty much for about 15 years. For me it’s the major one. And so, I think people vary with respect to how effi- smart-drug and it’s the greatest boon that I’ve ever had, it’s ciently we can convert codeine into morphine. I convert it never been a problem for me. And I’ve never had any kind of fairly efficiently and so codeine is fine for me. Chemically problem, but I tend to use them every day, and it’s been a you can convert them, you can demethylate codeine into problem sometimes for me with travel, especially to the U.S. morphine with boron tribromide, which is a simple reaction, although here you can buy opium poppies and just make tea and it goes in quantitative yield. from them, and it’s cheaper than buying espresso really. Will: Do you know if other populations in other countries Will: Do you use it in it’s raw form? have different percentages of people without that enzyme?

Jonathan: Yeah, opium-poppy tea. Or codeine or morphine, Jonathan: Yeah, I’m sure but I don’t know the statistics or if pharmaceutical pills. In Spain, the pharmaceutical pills are it’s even been tested, but I’m sure that must be the case. really readily available and cheap. Will: And so for those people they would not get any analge- Will: Just codeine though, right? sia?

Jonathan: Yeah, but I like codeine. And you can make mor- Jonathan: None. phine or heroin from it if you wish to. But you can get 50 mg codeine pills over the counter in Spain with no aspirin. Will: What do you do for someone like that when they’re in… pain, heh-heh… are there other drugs? Will: Yeah, I’ve tried those, my friends brought them back, and there is just not the euphoria that there is with oxycodone Jonathan: Morphine. or hydrocodone. I think they are far inferior. Will: Oh I see, just give it to them as morphine. Jonathan: Well, I don’t notice any difference between Hycodan®, Percodan®, and codeine. I prefer codeine, actu- Jonathan: Right. But there again, see, black is white and white ally. is black; they have this massive growth of opium poppies for the legal opiate industry. By the way, I was talking about the Will: Really? PARTNERSHIP FOR A DRUG-FREE AMERICA… the United States uses 52% of the world’s legal opiate supply with only 4% of the Jonathan: But you see people vary pharmacogenetically with population, 70% of the black-market cocaine and 34% of the respect to the enzyme which is called, it’s a cytochrome P450 200 and some odd million kilogram output of the world phar- enzyme, I think it’s called CYP2D6, and it’s actually the en- maceutical industry. 34% of the whole pharmaceutical out- zyme that catalyzes the transformation in your body of co- put of the world is used inside the U.S. Drug-free America! If deine to morphine because we make morphine, codeine and it gets any freer, we will all be dying of overdoses! And so, thebaine. We have the same biochemical pathways as the yeah, black is white and white is black. They take the mor- opium poppy. And so, morphine is an endopioid also, for us, phine out of this and convert it to codeine, which is less ac- and so those people that don’t have endogenous morphine, tive and isn’t even processed effectively into morphine by a

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great many people—so that it won’t be abused. But they have And there’s one species from Costa Rica that has such high already abused the shit out of it by doing that in the first levels of batrachotoxins that two scientists died from just place. (laughter) handling an animal; they got enough of it on the palms of their hands that it killed them. It’s very toxic stuff, but only Will: So what is the easiest way to get proglumide? two of the species are known to be used for poison-darts. What the Peruvian Indians do is they carefully spread-eagle Jonathan: Buy it from SIGMA through somebody that has a these little creatures, they stretch them out in a little frame chemical company. But yeah, I had never thought about that of wood—and they are very careful not to harm them and until just now, but I’ll definitely develop that as another they always release them unhurt—and then they scrape their PHARMACOPHILIA product. And start a line of… I call it anti- skins with a soft stick and collect the secretion from their mithridatism because Mithridates was the one who came up skins and dry that out. Then when they wish to go hunting— with the idea that if you take poisons in small doses every they put this on their darts and so forth, because it’s a fulmi- day you will become immune to those poisons. And so it’s nating poison—but when they wish to go hunting they burn sort of like anti-mithridatism to work against that kind of their arms with a brand from the fire, they put a little of this tolerance mechanism. And it would work probably with all in their palms, they dissolve it in some saliva which they rub these drugs, there must be an endogenous Valium®-type into the burn on their arms, and then they also burn the noses inhibitor. Valium®, by the way, is also a natural product, of their hunting dogs and do the same thing, rubbing it onto it’s been found in plants and animals, it’s been found in the dogs’ noses. And then both the dogs and the people have fungi also. heavy toxicity and vomiting and they’re incapacitated for about 8 or 10 hours, and they’re in a kind of toxic stupor. But Jon: Found in any kind of quantities to isolate from plants? when that passes all their senses are enhanced for hunting and the dogs can smell better and they can see and hear bet- Jonathan: It doesn’t seem to be of pharmacological signifi- ter and so forth, and then they go out hunting after weather- cance in plants. But I think that Valium®, or desmethyl- ing the storm. So it turns out that the compound isolated Valium®, is our endogenous sedative, because we have this from these frogs, epibatidine, is a nicotinic-receptor agonist.

GABAA receptor, which is also called the benzodiazepine re- And nicotine is also an analgesic with morphine-like effects. ceptor, and only two endogenous ligands have been isolated for that, and they’re both anxiogenic, they both cause anxiety Jon: This is the “toad morphine” that you’re talking about? rather than relieve it, and Valium® hits that receptor and re- lieves anxiety. One of them is a ß-carboline, one of these en- Jonathan: Right. But it’s a frog, not a toad, ‘though morphine dogenous ligands of the benzodiazepine receptor is a ß-car- itself occurs in toad-skins. And nicotine is also an analgesic, boline. And that’s why I’m pretty sure that ß-carbolines main but that effect is overwhelmed by much more dramatic other

activity is at this GABAA receptor in the brain. And so the effects that it has. And so they have now come up with—and reason they have additive effects with alcohol is alcohol is ABBOTT LABS is developing this—something that is about a also effective at that receptor. And so I think that’s their real hundred times more active at this nicotinic receptor then

pharmacological importance. And so the GABAA receptor is epibatidine as an analgesic [the drug is called ABT-594], and an important target of drug-development, and also the nico- of course now they’re touting it as a non-addicting analgesic tine-receptors. The MAOI effect of ß-carbolines in the brain and the same old bullshit. But, I mean, like any other analge- is probably of little or no significance in ayahuasca pharma- sic, if it really works, it will be “addicting,” because it’s the cology, since cerebral MAO is inside the nerve-terminals, not same thing. If it works people will like it. As it happens, it in the synapses, where, however, ß-carbolines might com- was bullshit—ABBOTT has cancelled development of the drug pete with DMT for access to receptor sites. less than a year after a Science article touting its wondrous non-addicting (sic) analgesia. You probably know about this epibatidine, which comes from Epipedobates tricolor. It’s one of these poison-dart frogs from Will: So you would feel comfortable marketing a product like Central America, they’re little tiny things and people cruelly proglumide? keep them as pets in aquaria, and there are hobby-shop books about them. But anyway, they mainly contain batracho- Jonathan: I don’t know about the patent situation, it will toxins, which are some of the most toxic compounds known. probably have to be licensed from the manufacturer. But

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maybe the patent has run out, maybe it’s a generic thing that your patents to them and then you retire on a boat up the can just be sold, but yeah, definitely. It was approved in many Amazon. Well… the only thing that would make me wish to different countries, it’s toxicity is well-known and minimal. retire is destroying this Evil Empire, I don’t think that’s ex- Yeah I just never thought about that. So there will be a mar- actly going to happen but… so I don’t think I’ll ever retire ket for drug-boosters and also tolerance-minimizers, which because the Evil Empire will just go on to other things once will be another kind of drug-booster. There are just a mil- they can think of some other angle, which should take from lion-and-one possibilities, and everybody else is barking up five minutes to five days. the wrong tree and just working completely at cross-purposes to what makes sense and so meanwhile I see we have a ten Jon: Glad to hear that you’ll keep fighting the good fight as year window-of-opportunity to become the MICROSOFT of the long as possible. Good luck with your publishing and phar- psychocosmos. And then when it’s no longer possible to com- maceutical ventures, and thanks for taking the time out to pete with the big-time drug pushers, then you just license speak with us for The Entheogen Review. ✧

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